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Pretty cute, right? I’ve only done dry brush nails a few times, but every time I do, I’m reminded of how easy they are! And they look really cool! I’ve acquired a good pile of compliments on these nails so far, and nobody really believes me when I say these are super easy, so I figured I’d provide a little quicky tutorial on these. Disclaimer: I totally didn’t invent this technique. It’s been around for a few years now, and I really don’t have any idea who the originator is. But I’m definitely sure that it wasn’t me.

First you start with your base coat and then a light, neutral polish. This time I went with Wet n Wild – Yo Soy. Seriously, this is such a pretty nude color and it’s only $.99! I’m not sure how it works with other skin tones, but with my pale pinkish skin, it works really well. This picture was taken without a top coat, so you can really see how shiny it is! This is two coats, and it’s totally opaque. For dry brushing, you can never go wrong with a white base either.

Now, pick a few contrasting colors. I opted for Jordana – Hypnotizing, China Glaze – Budding Romance, and Fresh Paint – Let the Games Begin. Budding Romance is the most sheer out of these three polishes, so I decided to use it last. I decided to start with Let the Games Begin, the blue.

Shake (or better yet, roll) your polish like normal, but here’s the important part: after you open your bottle, wipe as much polish as possible off on the neck of the bottle. Like, six times. Just keep wiping. You just want the littlest bit of residual polish on the brush. After you’ve wiped all of the excess polish off of the brush, pick a direction, and drag the brush over your nail. I decided to mix it up, so I dragged the brush down my thumb, middle finger and pinky vertically, and across my other two fingers horizontally.

I then did the exact same thing with the purple polish, and then with the green polish, kind of filling in the empty spaces. Although I intended to take pictures of each step of this manicure, I didn’t. Fail. See, I’m usually watching something important on TV (like Sister Wives or Dance Moms) while I’m doing my nails, so I tend to forget to take pictures of each step. I just crank along and then I’m like, “Oh dang, I’m done… And I only have 2 pictures.”

So anyway, after adding the purple and green polish, I finished off with a matte top coat. I don’t know why, but I feel like dry brush nails look the best with a matte top coat.

Oh, cautionary tale time; there’s really only one way you can screw up dry brush nails, and that is by not wiping the brush off well enough. Exhibit A is here on the right. This is my ring finger on my right hand. See that big blob of blue? That’s where I didn’t wipe the brush off well enough. Moral of the story: wipe the brush off. A lot.

Thanks for reading! I hope this inspires you to try this technique. Please let me know if you have any questions. Until next time, happy polishing!

And the award for Most Infrequent Posting goes to…. ME! I apologize for my absence. I’m sure it’s left a gaping hole in your summer. I’m here and I’m fine and I’m still painting my nails. I’ve just been busy. It’s summer, so I can be outside doing stuff. In a few months it will be cold and miserable and I’m sure I’ll be posting much more regularly then.

I thought I’d just highlight a few manicures that I’ve sported over the past month or so. Here we go…

Turquoise and red with white polka-dots. Aren’t these cute? I really liked them. I didn’t know until I did them how retro-looking they would be. And they were so shiny! These were super easy, too. You only need a dotting tool. This is such a fun way to try out different color combinations. I wish I had a dress that looked like these nails.

Glittery plaid print. No picture could do these proper justice. The base polish was Funky Fingers – Sand & Stilettos which is a crazy sparkly holographic micro glitter. It’s like camping… It’s in tents. (Intense. Get it?) The pink and blue polishes were both jellies,so the glitter was still visible. So, so sparkly.

Dry brush tie-dye. I started with a white base and then just did a little dry brushing, starting with the yellow at my cuticles. I just made sure that each of the colors overlapped a little. The dry brush technique is super easy, by the way. You just wipe almost all of the polish off the brush on the neck of the bottle and then drag the “dry” brush over your nails. No tools or artistic skill required!

Neon orange citrus nails. I should call these neon orange orange nails. The base color was Orly – Tropical Pop and the darker orange was a Sally Girl polish from Sally Beauty Supply. To pull off orange polish, I always have to wait until I get a little bit of a “tan”. I don’t really tan. According to my foundation, I go from “fair” to “light”. These were so bright, but you know how it is to photograph neons.

Oh, I also took a picture of these nails while riding the Sky View at Hersheypark. I really, really liked these nails! By the way, Hersheypark is where I spent a significant amount of time in June. It’s an awesome place to go before the crowds get really heavy in July and August.

Metallic butterfly nails. I’m not sure who came up with butterfly wing nails originally, but ever since I first saw them a year or so ago, I’ve wanted to try them. I finally got around to it. These were a little time-consuming, but not really too bad. I was going to use a pink/purple/blue neon gradient for the base, but I opted for a softer, more realistic green/purple gradient instead. I also went with a matte top coat to make it a little more true to actual butterfly wings, also.

Jaunty Juli recreation. I can take no credit for this design. Jaunty Juli came up with it, and lots of people have recreated them. I had to jump on the bandwagon. Super cute, right? That Jaunty Juli is so creative!

Matte pastel with gold glitter. These are pretty much a recreation of some nails that I did last summer and really liked. I just love how gold glitter looks under a matte top coat. Its just so frosty and beautiful! This is another fun way to play with color combinations that requires pretty much no artistic skill either.

So, Those are a bunch of my summer nails! Between fancy manicures, I love wearing obnoxiously bright neon polishes. Someday I’ll be too old and they will be out of style, so I’m going to carpe diem.